What is True Love? Portrait of a Zion Person (Part 2)
Sep 19th, 2008 by larrybarkdull
Becoming a Zion person is a process that replaces telestial qualities with celestial ones. In Part 2 of this Zion series, we will discuss the traits of charity (true love), experiencing true happiness, joy and fullness of life, and becoming holy.
Exhibiting the True Love of Christ
President Joseph F. Smith said, “Charity, or [true] love, is the greatest principle in existence.” On the principle of love-love of God and love of neighbors-”hang all the law and the prophets.” Like other principles, love ranges in quality from telestial to celestial, which type of love is called charity, “the pure love of Christ.” This quality of love-true love–is found in a Zion person, and because charity is perfect, celestial, true love, it “never faileth.”
Charity describes God: “God is love.” Because we are commanded to be perfect like him, we must learn to truly love like he loves. The apostle John taught that the person who loves best knows God best: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”
What sets apart celestial love from lesser love is motivation; charity is more what we do than what we feel. Therefore, the opposite of love is not hate but apathy. Perhaps the best description of charity is found in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 and Moroni 7:44-48. Here is the list personalized of a Zion person’s true love:
Characteristics of True Celestial Love
- True love suffers long (endures a hardship or endures with someone during his/her hardship)
- True love is kind
- True love does not envy
- True love is not vaunted up (does not boast)
- True love is not puffed up (is not proud)
- True love does not behave unseemly (act rudely)
- True love seeks not his/her own (is not selfish)
- True love is not easily provoked (keeps temper under control)
- True love thinks no evil (focuses on the good)
- True love does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth (is not inclined toward evil, but embraces anything virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy)
- True love bears all things (bears up under the weight of problems)
- True love believes all things (recognizes and follows truth)
- True love hopes all things (knows ultimately that God is in charge)
- True love endures all things (is willing to pay the price because he knows the wait will be worth it).
True Celestial Love vs. Telestial and Terrestrial Love
Charity (true love) differs from telestial and terrestrial love by the fact that it is saving love. Charity lifts another person, and has the capacity to forgive and rescue from enormous distances. As we give and receive this celestial love, we discover that those within our gravitational pull cannot escape its embrace.
The Three Pillars and Meanings of True Love
Charity, the true love of Zion, is built on three pillars: total loyalty, total sacrifice and total trust. Moreover, charity has three meanings: Love from Christ, Love for Christ, Love like Christ. Quoting Elder Max Caldwell, H. Wallace Goddard observed, “Charity is first and foremost the redemptive love that Jesus offers all of us. It is the love from Christ. He is the model of charity – which never faileth.’”
How Does True Love Grow?
How does celestial love grow? By someone loving first. Heavenly Father set the example: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us…We love him, because he first loved us.” Likewise, when we love first, love is returned. It is an oft-repeated scriptural formula that has many applications. For example, “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” Elder Boyd K. Packer said it this way: “As you give what you have, there is a replacement, with increase!” John Greenleaf Whittier wrote, “I’ll lift you, and you lift me, and we’ll both ascend together.”
Blessings of True Love
Whereas Babylon elevates only me, the true love of Zion elevates others through me. Zionlike love is not only an expansive principle, it is one that draws God near to us and becomes perfect when we accept it and do not turn away from it: “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.” Moreover, by showing love through selfless service, we are endowed with an added measure of the Holy Ghost: “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.” As we abide in this cycle of loving and receiving love, our ability to love eventually becomes perfect: “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect….”
One of the greatest benefits of love is ceasing to be afraid: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear….” Moreover, Zion’s love is patient, which means: “I will wait with you,” “I will wait for you,” and “I will wait upon you,” meaning “I will serve you.” In one way or another I will wait.
Love-celestial, true, Zionlike love–is the greatest power in the universe. True love motivates God to do all that he does. The greatest expression of his love is to give and redeem life. He invites all of his children to experience this quality of love and this type of life, for therein is his “joy made full.” By following his example-giving life and redeeming life-is our joy also made full. And the word full always describes Zion.
Experiencing true happiness, joy and fullness of life
In addition to charity-true celestial love-Zion people are distinguished by a celestial level of other virtues, such as happiness, joy and fullness of life. Interestingly, the scriptures connect these three. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught “happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God.”
Happiness, like other principles, exists in varying degrees “ranging from ‘celestial’ to ‘telestial,’ depending on the level of ‘law’ they ‘abide’ (D&C 88:22-35; 76).” People of Zion enjoy happiness on a celestial level. Having embraced the New and Everlasting Covenant after the coming of Christ, the Nephites enjoyed happiness equal to that of Enoch’s people, which Elder Marion G. Romney described as “a society in which, ‘there was no contention…because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people’; a society in which, ‘there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness;’ a society in which every member had conquered the lusts of the flesh. ‘…and surely,’ concludes the record, ‘there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God.’ (4 Nephi 15-16).”
Certainly, the absence of evil promotes joy, but only “virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God,” which includes selfless service, create it. If the purpose of man’s creation is that he might have joy, then that man must develop these attributes in his character.
Attendant Blessings
We experience joy by awareness and appreciation for “the gifts of life, the earth, and personal agency (e.g., taste, smell, beauty, music)”; by “using these gifts to create opportunities or to develop relationships (e.g., marriage, parenting, charity); by “coming to understand how mortality fits into the divine purpose or plan of Heavenly Father” (using this understanding “as a framework for comprehending and assimilating life’s experiences”); and by “accepting Christ as Savior and feeling his acceptance and approval of one’s efforts.”
Elder McConkie explained that only entering into the joy of the Lord, could cultivate a fullness of joy, which is the condition of Zion. True happiness-joy-, he said, “is a gift of the Spirit. It comes from the Holy Ghost,” suggesting that Satan cannot duplicate the feeling of joy. “In this connection, the Book of Mormon describes a scene wherein ‘the spirit of the Lord came upon them, and they were filled with joy, having received a remission of their sins, and having peace of conscience’ (Mosiah 4:3; cf. John 15:10-12).” Therefore, the more faith-filled, repentant, humble and Zionlike we become, the more joy we experience.
Moreover, our seeking the establishment of Zion in our lives will serve to dispel sadness and result in the highest degree of joy: “For the Lord shall comfort Zion, he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.”
Becoming Holy
Charity, happiness, joy and fullness of life contribute to holiness. Zion is a holy place-”the City of Holiness”–whose individual citizens are holy: “…he that is left in Zion…shall be called holy.” We cannot make ourselves holy; only God can do that. Our responsibility is to strive for holiness by living the New and Everlasting Covenant (the Covenant), which has the power to bring us to perfection, and thus holiness.
Because Zion “cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom,” a state of holiness is not possible unless we embrace the celestial Covenant and become like celestial people. Brigham Young explained the goal of holiness pursued by Zion people: “We are trying to be the image of those who live in heaven; we are trying to pattern after them, to look like them, to walk and talk like them, to deal like them, and build up the kingdom of heaven as they have done.”
Journey to Holiness
Becoming holy is a journey: “The process of becoming holy is based on three doctrines: justification, which satisfies the demands of justice for the sins of the individual through the Atonement of Jesus Christ; purification, made possible by that same Atonement and symbolized in the Sacrament of the bread and water, requiring the constant cleansing of oneself from earthly stains and imperfections; and sanctification, the process of being made holy. Having purified oneself of imperfections to the greatest degree possible, one is invested, over a lifetime, with holiness from God.”
How We Become Holy
The concept of perfection, the ultimate expression of holiness, can seem overwhelming to us struggling mortals. The troubling commandment is stated in the Sermon of the Mount. Using the Father as an example, Jesus told his disciples in Jerusalem: “Ye are therefore commanded to be perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Later, to the Nephites, he gave substantially the same commandment, but this time he added himself as an example: “Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.”
We see in these verses a subtle indication that total perfection is acquired by going from one perfection to another. While Jesus was in the flesh, although he was a perfect man, he was nevertheless not as perfect as his Father, who was a resurrected, glorified man. But after his resurrection, as indicated in his rewording the commandment to the Nephites, Jesus could claim the Father’s quality of perfection. Clearly, this exalted level of perfection can only be attained after the resurrection.
Achieving Holiness in the Covenant
Interestingly, some gospel writers have suggested that the Savior’s commandment to become perfect points to the diligence we give to abiding in the New and Everlasting Covenant. Hence, the verse might read, “Ye are therefore commanded to be perfect in living the Covenant even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect in living the Covenant.” With the same degree of diligence that the Father perfectly abides in the Covenant, so we must abide in the Covenant–”even unto death, that you may be found worthy.”
We do not arrive at this or any level of perfection automatically. Nevertheless, we understand that just men, who are not yet ultimately perfect, are nevertheless made perfect through the grace of Jesus Christ; that is, abiding in the Covenant assures us the enabling power of the atonement to make us as if we were perfect until the time that we are wholly perfect, meaning “finished, complete, fully developed.” Perhaps it is this quality of perfection that just men like Noah attained, for such men are described as perfect in their generation.
Likewise, we are made perfect in the Covenant, which is designed to move us forward to ultimate perfection and holiness, if we will abide in it as does our Father, whose name is Man of Holiness. Therefore, we have no reason to lose hope. The prophets have taught us repeatedly that it is our direction, not our arriving, that makes all the difference. The perfection of Enoch’s Zion, we are told, was in the “process of time.”
Joseph F. Smith, Conference Report, April 1917, p.4
See Marvin J. Ashton, Ensign, “Be a Quality Person,” February 1993
H. Wallace Goddard, Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage, p. 111
Boyd K. Packer, “The Candle of the Lord,” Ensign, January 1983
See Alma 26:11, 16; 3 Nephi 27:31; 28:10
See 4 Nephi 1:3, 16; Mosiah 16:11
Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 255-56
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, “Zion,” p.1625
Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, April 1958, p.126, emphasis added
Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 255-56
See Matthew 16:25; Mosiah 4:3, 20
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, “Joy,” p.771
Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, “Joy,” p.397
See Encyclopedia of Mormonism, “Joy,” p.771
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, “Holiness,” p.648
Journal of Discourses, vol 9, p.170
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, “Holiness,” p.648
See Moroni 10:32-33; D&C 76:69; 129:3; Hebrews 12:23
